DIALECTSOFENGLISH NORTHERNANDINSULARSCOTS ROBERTMCCOLLMILLAR NORTHERNANDINSULARSCOTS RobertMcCollMillar TheScotsdialectsofnorthernScotland,OrkneyandShetlandareamong themosttraditionalvarietiesof‘English’,exhibitingfeaturesnotcurrent elsewhereforcenturies.Untilrecently,theywerespokenincommunities whosetraditionaloccupationshaveencouragedtheequationofspeechwith localidentity.TheyhaveallalsobeenaffectedbycontactwithGaelic,or Norse,orboth.Inrecentyears,however,thedeclineoftraditionalindustries hasbeenmatchedbythediscoveryofoilofftheircoasts,encouragingin- migrationofspeakersofmanyvarietiesofEnglishandotherlanguages.How wellhavethesevarietiesmaintainedtheirtraditionalnaturesatthestartof thetwenty-firstcentury? NorthernandInsularScots provides: •anapproachabledescriptionofthephonological,structuralandlexical naturesofthesevarieties •ahistoryofthevarietiesinrelationtotheareasinwhichtheyarespoken •examplesofthelanguageofnativespeakers •anannotatedbibliographywhichpointsthereadertowardsmore specialisedworks. RobertMcCollMillarlecturesinlinguisticsattheUniversityofAberdeen. Hehaspublishedwidelyontopicsrelatingtothelanguageuseofnorthern Scotland,aswellasonlanguagechangeandthesociologyoflanguage. ISBN9780748623174 EdinburghUniversityPress 22GeorgeSquare Edinburgh EH89LF www.eup.ed.ac.uk Coverphoto©SandraWeyland CoverdesignBarrieTullett DIALECTSOFENGLISH SeriesEditors: JoanBeal,PatrickHoneybone&AprilMcMahon Booksinthisnewseriesprovideconcise,up-to-datedocumentationforvarietiesofEnglish fromaroundtheworld.Writtenbyexpertswhohaveconductedfirst-handresearch,the volumesprovideastartingpointforanyonewishingtoknowmoreaboutaparticulardialect. Eachvolumefollowsacommonstructure,coveringthebackground,phoneticsandphonology, morphosyntax,lexisandhistoryofavarietyofEnglish,andconcludeswithanannotated bibliographyandsomesampletexts. DIALECTSOFENGLISH NORTHERNANDINSULARSCOTS ROBERTMCCOLLMILLAR Edinburgh Northern and Insular Scots Dialects of English Series Editors Joan Beal (University of Sheffield) Patrick Honeybone (University of Edinburgh) April McMahon (University of Edinburgh) Advisory Board Laurie Bauer (Victoria University of Wellington) Jenny Cheshire (Queen Mary, University of London) Karen Corrigan (University of Newcastle upon Tyne) Heinz Giegerich (University of Edinburgh) Peter L. Patrick (University of Essex) Peter Trudgill (University of Fribourg, University of East Anglia, Agder University College, La Trobe University) Walt Wolfram (North Carolina State University) Northern and Insular Scots Robert McColl Millar Edinburgh University Press © Robert McColl Millar, 2007 Edinburgh University Press Ltd 22 George Square, Edinburgh Typeset in 10.5/12 Janson by Servis Filmsetting Ltd, Manchester, and printed and bound in Great Britain by Cromwell Press, Trowbridge, Wilts A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978 0 7486 2316 7 (hardback) ISBN 978 0 7486 2317 4 (paperback) The right of Robert McColl Millar to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Contents Acknowledgements vii 1 Introduction 1 1.1 Northern and Insular Scots 1 1.2 The linguistic ecologies of the regions 5 1.3 Geography and culture: an introduction 6 1.4 A note on terminology: ‘Scots’ versus ‘English’ 14 1.5 Conclusion 15 2 Phonetics and phonology 16 2.1 Introduction 16 2.2 The vowel systems 20 2.3 Consonant phonology 61 2.4 Prosody 64 2.5 Conclusion 64 3 Morphosyntax 65 3.1 Introduction 65 3.2 The nouns 66 3.3 Pronouns 67 3.4 The definite article 71 3.5 Adjectives 72 3.6 Verbs 72 3.7 Conclusion 78 4Lexis 79 4.1 Introduction 79 4.2 Scholarly resources: national 79 4.3 Locally focused resources 83 4.4 Dialect vocabulary and heritage 92 4.5 Discussion 94 4.6 Lexical borrowing 95 4.7 Conclusion 102 5 History, including changes in progress 103 5.1 Introduction: language contact and language shift 103 5.2 Northern Scotland 106 5.3 The Northern Isles 123 5.4 Conclusion 135 6 Survey of previous works and annotated bibliography 136 6.1 General histories, grammars, studies of phonology and dictionaries of Scots 136 6.2 Local history and geography 137 6.3 Studies of specific dialects 138 6.4 Theoretical views discussed in this book 139 6.5 Suggestions for future research 140 6.6 Works cited in this chapter and the book as a whole 142 7Texts 149 7.1 Shetland 149 7.2 Orkney 162 7.3 Caithness 163 7.4 Black Isle 166 7.5 Mid-Northern B 167 7.6 Mid-Northern A 168 7.7 South Northern 171 Index 173 For recordings of the transcriptions in this book go to www.lel.ed.ac.uk/dialects vi NORTHERN AND INSULAR SCOTS Acknowledgements In the first place, I want to thank everyone who spoke to us while we were carrying out fieldwork for this book; especially those who agreed to be recorded. In particular, I would like to thank those who were recorded in Orkney and Lossiemouth but whose conversations have not been transcribed due to a faulty Minidisc recorder. Although your speech is not represented here, the ideas and pointers you gave us have been invaluable. Second, I am especially grateful to those who helped us set up inter- views: John Burke, Peter Fraser, Madelaine and Rachel King, Ali Lumsden, Jack and Vanda Moodie, John Tallach and Nicola Thomson. I also want to thank my colleagues here in Aberdeen: Barbara Fennell, Carmen Llamas, Derrick McClure and, in particular, Dom Watt, who has given me a great deal of help and encouragement with transcrip- tions. I would also like to mention two former colleagues, Thor-Sigurd Nilsen and Caroline Macafee, whose ideas and views helped shaped my approach to this book. My students, Barbara Loester and Sandra McRae, have taught me a great deal. The research for this book would have been much more difficult without a grant for travel to Shetland from the British Association for Applied Linguistics. Sarah Edwards has been a very patient and helpful editor. April McMahon’s and Patrick Honeybone’s comments on an earlier draft of this book were both generous and insightful. Many thanks also to Alison Sandison for her excellent maps. Finally, my debt to Sandra Weyland is immense. Throughout the writing of this book, she has worked as (unpaid) research assistant while holding down a very demanding job. It is unlikely that I would have made half of the contacts across the Northern Isles and northern Scotland which she made. This book is dedicated to her. vii [...]...2 NORTHERN AND INSULAR SCOTS Map 1 Northern and Insular Scots SHETLAND ORKNEY North Northern B North Northern A Mid -Northern B MidNorthern A South Northern 0 50 100 km INTRODUCTION 3 1.1.1 Northern Scots As shown in the map above, the dialects of Northern Scots can be separated into three basic units: North Northern Scots, Mid -Northern Scots and a transitional area between Mid -Scots and Northern Scots. .. South Northern With the exception of South Northern Scots, all of these dialects are bounded on at least one side by the sea, and on another by areas where the local population spoke Gaelic until recently and where, in general, Highland English is now spoken The boundary between Scots and Highland English is highly permeable 1.1.1.1 Mid -Northern and South Northern Scots (North-East Scots) Mid -Northern. .. North Northern A and Highland English Many parts of this county were Gaelic-speaking well into the nineteenth century Most natives of the North-East call the local dialect The Doric; the local rural culture is also often termed Doric 4 NORTHERN AND INSULAR SCOTS To the south of Mid -Northern A is South Northern Scots, spoken in the Mearns (Kincardineshire south of the Highland boundary fault) and northern. .. MidNorthern: for instance, words are pronounced /f/ 1.1.2 Insular Scots It is much more straightforward to define boundaries between Insular Scots dialects than between North Northern, primarily because the speech communities are found in two discrete archipelagos Within these archipelagos there is also considerable variation: between island and island and even within some of the larger islands... North Northern A has the typical Northern merger of BUIT and MEET and what could be seen as the North Northern merger of BEAT with MATE-HAME and BAIT 2.2.2.6 Mid -Northern B Figure 2.11 Mid -Northern B monophthong pattern BUIT/MEET/BEAT MATE-HAME BAIT DRESS KIT STRUT OOT GOAT CAUGHT COT TRAP Mid -Northern B, however, has the expected merger of BUIT and MEET, but both merging with BEAT MATE-HAME and BAIT... marginal in relation to the West Germanic languages Northern Scotland was originally Gaelic-speaking The Northern Scots dialects were formed during a period of long-term bilingualism between the incoming Anglian dialect and the native Celtic language In some parts of northern Scotland, and in particular in the Northern Isles, a much closer relative of Scots was the primary contact language: the western... Pronunciation (RP) and General American (GenAm) can be illustrated as above Even before we begin a discussion of local pronunciations within northern Scotland and the Northern Isles, we can see that a specifically Scottish pronunciation pattern is present, distinct from both dominant pronunciations (RP and GenAm) Part of this distinction is due to perceptions of vowel length 18 NORTHERN AND INSULAR SCOTS 2.1.1... maintained a distinction between BUIT and all other lexical sets On the other hand BEAT, generally merged with MEET in SSE, is merged here with MATE-HAME, BAIT and DRESS As is indicated by the brackets, some Shetland varieties maintain a distinction between GOAT, CAUGHT and COT, 24 NORTHERN AND INSULAR SCOTS while others have merged all three sets In SSE, of course, only CAUGHT and COT are merged 2.2.2.3 Orcadian... northern and central Angus South Northern is transitional between Northern and Mid -Scots Following McClure’s schematisation, traditional dialect speakers would, like Mid -Northern A speakers, pronounce the equivalent of stone as /stin/ and the equivalent to interrogative and relative pronouns such as what as /ft/, but the equivalent of moon in a number of ways which associate it with Mid -Scots or even Insular. .. Map 3 The Black Isle and surroundings EAST SUTHERLAND EASTER ROSS Cromarty BLACK Fortrose Dingwall Avoch ISLE 0 50km INVERNESS 10 NORTHERN AND INSULAR SCOTS of its relatively cut-off nature, its generally fertile soil and dry climate, and its long coastline with several good harbours, the most important of which being Fortrose and Avoch (to the south) and Cromarty (to the north) The particular distinctiveness . transparent. 1 2 NORTHERN AND INSULAR SCOTS North Northern B South Northern Mid- Northern A Mid -Northern B North Northern A O RKNEY SHETLAND 0 50 100 km Map 1 Northern and Insular Scots 1.1.1 Northern Scots As. DIALECTSOFENGLISH NORTHERN AND INSULAR SCOTS ROBERTMCCOLLMILLAR NORTHERN AND INSULAR SCOTS RobertMcCollMillar The Scots dialectsof northern Scotland,Orkney and Shetlandareamong themosttraditionalvarietiesof‘English’,exhibitingfeaturesnotcurrent elsewhereforcenturies.Untilrecently,theywerespokenincommunities whosetraditionaloccupationshaveencouragedtheequationofspeechwith localidentity.TheyhaveallalsobeenaffectedbycontactwithGaelic,or Norse,orboth.Inrecentyears,however,thedeclineoftraditionalindustries hasbeenmatchedbythediscoveryofoilofftheircoasts,encouragingin- migrationofspeakersofmanyvarietiesofEnglish and otherlanguages.How wellhavethesevarietiesmaintainedtheirtraditionalnaturesatthestartof thetwenty-firstcentury? Northern and Insular Scots provides: . dialects of Northern Scots can be separated into three basic units: North Northern Scots, Mid -Northern Scots and a transitional area between Mid -Scots and Northern Scots termed South Northern.